Educational Science

Stroke Therapy Gets Boost from Virtual Reality

Virtual reality games may help patients recover after a stroke. The results of a new study show these games can improve the patient's arm strength. Patients were more likely to improve their arm strength if they played virtual reality games than if they received standard physical therapy, which includes exercises...

Virtual-Reality Tech Helps Treat PTSD in Soldiers

WASHINGTON — Veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could gain some relief from a new virtual-reality program, new research suggests. The simulated environment, which lets members of the military relive their traumatic experiences in a computer-game environment, has shown success in several early studies, researchers said in a talk...

Contact lenses that help enhance normal vision with megapixel 3D panoramic images are being designed by scientists using military funding. For those who do not want to rely on contact lenses, future versions could involve lenses directly implanted within the eye, researchers added. Over the decades, the video displays that...

Oculus Rift: 5 Virtual Reality Uses Beyond Gaming

Social media behemoth Facebook just paid $2 billion for Oculus VR, the virtual reality company that makes headsets and software hotly coveted by gamers. But Facebook creator and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is setting his sights far beyond immersive, first-person shooter video games. After games, we're going to make Oculus a...

U.S. Army Orders Virtual Reality Training for Soldiers

To rehearse their assault on Osama bin Laden′s Pakistani compound, U.S. Navy SEALs had to construct a replica of the expansive hideout. The U.S. Army has a wealth of experience in building such structures, as they have created numerous buildings, shoot houses and even entire mock villages to help train...

Virtual Reality Puts Adults in a Child's World

Virtual reality can make adults see the world through a child's eyes, new research suggests. In the study, adults who inhabited the virtual body of a child saw objects in the world as bigger, associated more readily with childlike words and chose to inhabit a virtual childish room versus a...

Virtual Reality Spiders Crawl Toward Phobia Treatment

Researchers have created an augmented reality application that fills your desk with virtual hairy, red-and-black patterned spiders. The spiders even interact with real things on the desk, crawling over books and disappearing under pieces of paper. That's probably not appealing to most people, but the research team, which includes a...

Police Investigators Revisit Crime Scenes Using Virtual Reality

This Research in Action article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. It may look like a video game screenshot, but this is serious business. The image displays the kind of faithfully reconstructed crime scene that detectives and other investigators would study if they used a...

Google Glass Virtual Tour Lets You See Inside New Solar Plane

Two Swiss pilots who will attempt to fly around the world in a solar-powered plane are planning to give the public a virtual tour of their high-tech ride today (April 10). André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard will host a guided tour of their newly unveiled solar plane, named Solar Impulse...

Virtual Reality Could Let Astronauts 'Go to the Beach'

Spending long periods of time in space can be a psychologically demanding experience, but a new virtual reality system could give NASA astronauts a welcome escape. The system, which features the super-advanced Oculus Rift virtual reality display, would allow spacefarers to virtually visit friends and family at home, or places...